Currently there is a large sum of gold owed to the nation of France by inactive players. With the current system, France's treasury will never see this gold again. Does anyone have any suggestions for how this can be resolved or if this is even something that needs resolving? Other than the bankruptcy law I suggested earlier, I have no solutions to how a nation can collect debts. Some form of debt collection is necessary. Maybe the sold off cannons and crew pay for the debts. Maybe the resources in their ports or the ships they have or something?

I'd go with something like the deportation law for inactives : one way would be, on deportation, for assets to be sold off to cover any outstanding debt : another would be a stand-alone law, 'Bankruptcy', which would allow for seizure of assets to cover the debt, in full or part. I reckon it would work like deportation, considering the length of time the player has been inactive and/or in debt before allowing a vote on it. Once enacted, any remaining ships, goods, cannon, etc would be sold off and the proceeds passed to the Nation Treasury. I'd make it a one off-event, once enacted it cant be repeated, and after any proceeds are applied to the debt, the rest is written off.

I know the idea of banks buying debt from nations has been raised : as a banker, that's a daft notion until banks themselves have means to recover bad debt other than saddling up their warships and hunting down the miscreants ships, not always a profitable exercise once costs of turns, voodoo and return fire on their lit-up 'bailiff' fleets is included.

First of all, no automatic seizure will ever take place. It's not like crew, who leaves or cannons who cannot be maintained.

These are debts from taxes. There are two ways in real world to collect them; Either willingly or by force. No automatic ways exist in the real world, therefore there should never exist in the game.

Therefore, in the game, there is no way to force an inactive player to pay his debts. Debts of inactive players will gradually vanish thanks to the debt clearance mechanism:

Changelog wrote:Most similar results found:
1.3.103 (2015-03-11 13:35:35)

All outstanding debts to countries are declared null and void once a specific amount of days pass. The rates are as following:

0 - 100k - 365 days
100k - 500k - 2 years
500k - 1m - 3 years
1m - 5m - 4 years
5m - 25m - 5 years

Therefore, for inactive users, with a small open window for debts greater than 25 millions and one more for different limits, we have nothing more to add.

For active users, there is a problem that needs to be corrected. First, we need to provide a way to players to pay their debts even if they are not in the country. Right now, the only way to do so, is only if you are member of the country. This way has not been yet provided due to the nature of the solutions we have on the table.

The leading solution is to make the banks work more.
We will allow countries to sell off debts to banks (at any price the country bureaucrats decide).
In this case, no extra repayment mechanism is needed. A simple new law that will sell an existing debt to a banker will be created (the decision will be sealed at each case through a voting). The debt then will be created as a loan (with no interest rate) between the banker and the player.

The banker then will be able to attempt to get (a full or partial) repayment. One of the weapons we can give to the banker to achieve this, is the ability for a banker to create a bounty on the target debtor.

For example, lets suppose Roileon owes in someway, about 15M in the nation of Spain.
Roileon nowadays sails with French flag and has no intentions to pay off this debt.
Spain officials decide to sell this debt to Danik (who has a bank) for the price of 5M.
Spain voters approve this proposal and Danik accepts it.
The bank pays 5M directly to Spain treasury and as a result, the debt of Roileon to Spain, is now cleared.
A new loan is created, one of 15M and 0% between Danik's Bank and Roileon.
Danik contacts Roileon to let him know of the situation. Danik, proposes to Roileon that if he gives him 10M in the space of 30 days, he will clear the loan.
Roileon however, decides that he does not want to pay any and chooses to ignore Danik.
Then Danik could threaten Roileon that he will use force to collect the debt (ie, I will scrap your ships for it!)
Now, in the case Danik is in no position to beat Roileon himself (or he does not want to) he could use a 3rd man to do it, for a payment.

This is what bounties will offer. They will be contracts that will offer great flexibility as there will be many collaterals to use. For example, credits,ships,gold coins,gold bars, all these can be used as payment to the bounty receiver.

Bounties will be mostly in favor of the one who is carrying it over so someone will only resort to it as a last chance (or to peel pressure on an enemy). Obviously, Danik would earn more if Roileon agreed to pay at first place. Still, it is the only viable way we see. Under the pressure of an armed force and under the threat of a bounty or even under the promise of a bounty withdrawal, the debtor could agree to repay his debt.

That works if the debtor has assets that can actually be seized and sold ; which is ships and that's all : I'm sure Roi would consider, if I did buy this notional debt, that the best way to deal with my threats was liquidate his major ship assets himself, bank the proceeds out of harms way, run a swarm of lvl1 howkers fishing, and then give me the proverbial finger.

Still, it would make for some interesting scenarios...

Captain Jack wrote:First of all, no automatic seizure will ever take place. It's not like crew, who leaves or cannons who cannot be maintained.

These are debts from taxes. There are two ways in real world to collect them; Either willingly or by force. No automatic ways exist in the real world, therefore there should never exist in the game.

Therefore, in the game, there is no way to force an inactive player to pay his debts. Debts of inactive players will gradually vanish thanks to the debt clearance mechanism:

Changelog wrote:Most similar results found:
1.3.103 (2015-03-11 13:35:35)

All outstanding debts to countries are declared null and void once a specific amount of days pass. The rates are as following:

0 - 100k - 365 days
100k - 500k - 2 years
500k - 1m - 3 years
1m - 5m - 4 years
5m - 25m - 5 years

Therefore, for inactive users, with a small open window for debts greater than 25 millions and one more for different limits, we have nothing more to add.

For active users, there is a problem that needs to be corrected. First, we need to provide a way to players to pay their debts even if they are not in the country. Right now, the only way to do so, is only if you are member of the country. This way has not been yet provided due to the nature of the solutions we have on the table.

Has this ever been resolved?

I think have a really good idea to collect debts. Liens. I'm working out the details, but basically it is a nation law that would allow the council to submit a lien for vote against debts owed. Players who have a lien against them will be notified of the lien and have x days to decide whether to repay the debt in full, request a payment plan (Nation Loan), or forfeit assets.

As CJ has stated, seizure will not be allowed for tax debts.. so nations can go whistle for them. Put bluntly, any proposed means to recover which doesnt include seizure of assets is meaningless, but any proposal including it is not gonna happen.

Danik wrote:As CJ has stated, seizure will not be allowed for tax debts.. so nations can go whistle for them. Put bluntly, any proposed means to recover which doesnt include seizure of assets is meaningless, but any proposal including it is not gonna happen.

Actually, CJ stated that their will be no automatic seizures. Furhtermore Loan Shark technology allows banks to collect debt and seize assets.

http://www.piratesglory.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1839&hilit=loan+shark

Academy Banking Technology: Loan Shark wrote:

Captain Jack wrote:-Level 10 unlocks a new Bank ability for the Banker: Collateral Guarantee
This ability allows the banker (through target's consent during loan acceptance) to place a collateral marking to any of the assets owned by the loan receiver. The bank may liquidate the marked assets in case the receiver has debts (in case of a ship collateral, the ship is sold to the shipwright and banker gets the owned funds). Excess funds generated through a single liquidation, end up in the players hand treasury.

-Level 20 unlocks a new Bank ability for the Banker: Confiscate
This ability allows the banker (through target's consent during loan acceptance) to confiscate gold coins directly from the hand treasury or any bank savings or treasure hole or gold bars (market price at port taken in mind) at any warehouse. Confiscate can be used in combination with Collateral Guarantees and up to the owned amount each time.

-Each level recovers lost loans to inactive players by 1% (max 100% is allowed in combination with nation law insurance). Funds are drawn by the game directly and up to the amount of Loan Shark Level * 500,000

-Each level generates 2% more profit from loans paid by newcomers (Players with less than 3000 turns). Bonus is paid (and calculated) alongside with each player payment (automatic or not). Bonus is paid by the game. Max profit allowed this way is 50,000 * Bank Level per contract (7 days minimum is applied, which means a maximum of 142k extra profit per day, per contract). This bonus will be valid only once per receiving player. All these result to a maximum of 40% extra profit when issuing a loan offer to a newcomer. The max profit claimed in this way can be 1M from any given player.

If a bank can do so, a Nation should be able to do so through laws.

Well, may be like bounties a warrant can be issued by someone in the council. Whatever ship comes to port, it's revenue is collected toward the debt?

Collateral and seizure for bankers is all on a voluntary basis : its part of the contract agreed to by both sides (and then only for bankers with high levels of tech research) : that is not the case for nations, who have no means at all for enforcing or collecting debts : indeed, once the debtor has left the nation, there are no means whatsoever for them to repay the debt, even if they want to. It's a mess, has been for years and will remain so cos there is not any kind of priority to get it resolved.